Dear Governor Walker:
I was both surprised and bewildered last week when I saw a
news clip of
you stumping in Iowa about Megan Sampson, whom you called “The [2010]
Outstanding Teacher of the Year in my State.” This was baffling to me
since in 2010, I was named Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year
(Maureen Look-Ainsworth, Middle School Teacher of the Year; Peggy
Wuenstel, Special Services Teacher of the Year; and Michael Brinnen,
Elementary Teacher of the Year). In a most humbling ceremony, we were
each surprised at our respective schools by State Superintendent Tony
Evers and later honored at the State Capital as the Wisconsin Teachers
of the Year.
And so, as one of the bonafide 2010-2011 Wisconsin Teachers of the
Year, I feel the need to engage in one of the most valuable skills we
teach our students, critical analysis.
Verified by multiple news
sources,
it turns out that Megan Sampson did win an award in 2010, but it was
the Nancy Hoefs Memorial Award given by a relatively small organization
of Wisconsin English teachers (WCTE) for “an outstanding first year
teacher of language arts.” She was one of fewer than a dozen teachers
across the state who self-nominated for this award.
You failed to mention these details as you used Sampson’s lay-off
from her first year teaching position as an opportunity to bash
Wisconsin schools on the national stage. You blamed the seniority system
for Sampson’s lay-off when, in good conscience, you should have done
some serious soul searching and placed the blame squarely on your
systematic defunding of public education to the tune of $2.6 billion
that you cut from school districts, state aid to localities, the
UW-System and technical colleges.
This Wisconsin Teacher of the Year would like to clarify precisely what you’ve done for education.
2010-2011 was a surreal school year to be named Teacher of the Year
as that was the year your passage of Act 10 marked the exodus of
thousands of outstanding veteran teachers from the profession they love
and marked the beginning of an extreme strain on our ability to continue
providing the excellent public education Wisconsin has always been
known for.
And what have you done lately? In just the past month, it seems you
have once again actively declared war on education in your own state:
- You’ve directed the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to
devise content exams that would certify anyone with a degree to become a
licensed teacher. The ramifications of this move are nothing short of
catastrophic and would grossly diminish what data has repeatedly shown
to be the single most important factor in student learning: the quality
of the classroom teacher. Allowing someone to teach without any training
in HOW to teach, in effective pedagogy, in student behavior, brain
research, motivation, and classroom management is akin to allowing
someone who says “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on t.v.” to give you
a heart transplant.
- Continuing your bellicose streak (war is war, right?) you cut to the
jugular by proposing a 13% across-the-board budget cut from the
Wisconsin University System, our cornerstone of higher education, the
source of much of our skilled and educated workforce, the center for
research and development for our state. Aside from clearly being
anti-education, this move is clearly anti-growth.
- Psychological warfare has been your most recent tactic when you
attempted to (and later tried to blame it on a clerical error) revise
“The Wisconsin Idea” the sacred credo of the UW system articulated over a
century ago. You sought to omit mention of public service and improving
the human condition (you do realize that as Governor, you are
considered a public servant?) You also tried to delete the phrase:
“Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.” Truth.
Hmm…I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about that one.
Your tenure as Governor has demonstrated nothing less than a
systematic attempt to dismantle public education, the cornerstone of
democracy and the ladder of social mobility for any society.
How our paths have diverged from that August afternoon in 1986. True
story: it was freshman orientation just outside Memorial Union. We were
two of a couple thousand new Marquette University freshman wistful about
what our futures held. Four years later, I graduated from Marquette and
later became Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year. You never
graduated, and you became the Governor of the State of Wisconsin bent on
dismantling public education. Ironic, isn’t it? Situational irony at
its best. I’d laugh if its ramifications weren’t so utterly destructive
for the state of Wisconsin.
Sincerely,
Claudia Klein Felske
2010-2011 Wisconsin High School Teacher of the Year
Marquette University Class of 1990
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